Ajax On Java

The Essential of XMLHttp Request and XML Programming with Java

Ajax on Java shows you how to make your Java web applications more responsive and dynamic by incorporating new Ajaxian features, including suggestion lists, drag-and-drop, and more. This book demonstrates many different ways of incorporating Ajax, from building JavaScript into your applications “by hand” to using the new Google Web Toolkit (GWT). And, of course, you’ll learn how to use Ajax in your Struts, JSP, and JSF applications.

Ajax on Java starts with an introduction to Ajax, teaching you how to write some basic applications that use client-side JavaScript to request information from a Java servlet and display it without doing a full page reload. It also presents several strategies for communicating between the client and the server, including sending raw data and using XML or JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) for sending more complex collections of data.

The book then branches out into different approaches for incorporating Ajax.

These approaches include:

• The Prototype and script.aculo.us JavaScript libraries, the Dojo and Rico libraries, and DWR
• Using Ajax to build entry forms and suggestion fields
• Creating an Ajax tag library and third-party tag libraries
• Integrating Ajax into JavaServer Pages (JSP) applications
• Using Ajax with Struts
• Integrating Ajax into JavaServer Faces (JSF) applications
• Using Google’s GWT, which offers a pure Java approach to developing web applications: your client-side components are written in Java and compiled into HTML and JavaScript

Ajax on Java teaches you how to build applications that are more interactive, dynamic, exciting, and enjoyable for your users. If you’re a Java developer and haven’t tried Ajax but would like to get started, this book is essential. Your users will be grateful.

About the Author
Steven Douglas Olson has been a software developer for twenty years, starting with Fortran, Pascal, Basic, and later, C at a company called Signetics. While at Novell, he began dabbling in Java, and in 1995, he was among the first to join Novell's Java development group. He's since consulted or worked directly for eight other companies, writing primarily in Java. He currently works as a consultant in Salt Lake City, Utah.